Mind controlled TV

Finally, a good use for those EEG headsets. [Andrew] has set up a system that will turn his TV on and off if he focuses hard enough. He’s got the software set to trigger an IR LED when the “strength” gets high enough. When the action starts, around 4:30 in the video, you can see that when he raises his arm the meter on the screen begins to raise and the TV turns on. Though not immediately useful, we can’t help but get a little excited seeing him literally turn his TV on with a thought.

1) My blog has been linked on Adafruit, Slashdot and a bunch of other places and the FIRST ignorant comment comes from a HAD user. Grats!

2) I hear bashing Arduino is cool.

3) My name isn’t Andrew.

4) The first 3 sec. of the video state that I’m in my basement lounge next to my workshop. How did you EVER deduce that I was in the basement? I’d ask for a link to your projects, but you’re clearly spending all of your time trolling HAD.

@paul-the problem is that this technology collects none of that information. At the moment it is just a novelty. Until the underlying science progresses the kinds of applications you mention aren’t possible, but it will be really cool in the future.

The “Reason” for a given thing being Hacked often simply is because WE CAN. Then, we have a set of Hacking projects that are more dramatic for what they are doing that few others even come close to.

Do take under consideration what Paul has done with EEG tech as turning a “Gaming Toy” into something more useful. A little further improvement might end up giving many people a “Chance to Communicate” that they might not EVER have a chance for any other way. This EEG Hacking project is potentially going to give hope to many folks trapped in their minds, unable to get a thought in or out of their skulls!

Take a moment envision finding *YOU* are instantly in that reality- your brain has lost all Sensorium and ALL control of your body. We’re not talking about a mythical “someone else” either. The grim reality is- more than a few of you reading this are only a millisecond’s Spinal Damage etc away from being trapped in your own skull.

Having Cheap, Functional Off-The-Shelf tech to make life for folks needing EEG as communication is a step closer to reality thanks to Paul’s work.

i used to be able to do that. no modification to the tv. but then i took the drugs issued to me by THE MAN, and my powers of technopathy are fuckin gone. any ideas on how to hack my brain back into that state, other than the original neuro-hack that i did in Nov. 2006?

This technology interests me quite a bit, but I just can’t seem to think of many good applications for it in this state.

It is really limited to just toggling something on and off, and even then, doing so requires considerable concentration (as seen in the video). Of course, this is very early consumer hardware, later revisions should have considerably better resolution.

But it seems a lot of people are expecting a whole lot more from this technology then we are likely to see in the near future. We are a long way off from actually being able to “see” what a person is thinking.

The history of Technology tends to favor whole “Basic Technologies” that were born entire in a private,home lab- or taken from impractical barely functional crudities into things that WORKED.

EEG is one of those technologies that’s been always a bit shy of all it could be. I’d gently suggest that it’s more likely to have our next major leap in EEG Application Tech come from a shop like Paul’s than from Big Pharma etc.

So- independently working to confirm or refute what these headsets can and cannot be Hacked into doing is a chance to show our collective impact on Humanity. Hacking’s not always limited to shiny Steampunk artsy stuff. Sometimes, there’s a chance for Hackerdom to change our world for the better. Are we going to be a good example by peer replicating worthy Hacks, or is heckling everything that can be slagged the preferred ethic?

I hate to see what would happen to a TV when I were to connect my mind to it, and see those annoying commercials or awful shows or complete lies and BS on the news, I fear I might cause a global blackout :o